The Voice of Reason
by Killbot4000
Summary: A look inside the mind of B'Elanna Torres around the events of "Extreme Risk"
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek Voyager, it is the property of Paramount.**

"The time is 0800 hours"

B'Elanna Torres woke to the familiar voice of the computer's alarm. After five years in the delta quadrant it was something that she had grown familiar with but that didn't make it any easier to get up. She was never a morning person but lately it seemed like in order to get up she had to drag herself out through sheer force of will. It wasn't that she was sick it was just that there was not a whole lot to look forward to. Spending all those weeks in The Void had been tough on everyone, those long endless days where there was so little to do except be alone with your thoughts. And B'Elanna had more to think about than most others.

"Lieutenant Torres, I have finished cleaning out the plasma conduits. Lieutenant Torres?"

B'Elanna suddenly snapped out of her daydream. "Oh thanks Vorek, that'll be all."

Vorek paused for a second before returning to his duties. B'Elanna had however finished her shift for the day and she had to admit it hadn't been terribly productive. All she wanted to do was just go home and replicate some dinner. A few hours later she collapsed onto her bed. Even though it was time off for her there was a noticeable drop in energy and enthusiasm. She just didn't want to do anything, not go to the holodeck or read a book or even hang out with Tom. All she could do was lie there, by herself.

Only B'Elanna wasn't alone in her quarters, she may have been the only person there in body but there was another entity in there with her, one that inhabited a unique place in the mind of B'Elanna Torres. This was no friendly being, it was cruel and it was angry. It lay dormant in the mind of B'Elanna for a long time but recently it had come to the surface, become more aggressive. The Voice began to talk to her once more.

"_You're just going to lie there all evening aren't you? Like the pathetic loser that you are!"_

"What? I'm just tired, I just got off work and I can afford to lie down."

"_Oh you're tired are you? From all the nothing you have been doing over the last few months. Seriously you have had almost nothing to do, there haven't been any problems in engineering in who knows how long, the warp core is working perfectly and the engineering team can handle any minor issues that come up. You're not needed down there and nobody wants you in engineering anyway. You can see it on their faces."_

"That's not true! I have been their commanding officer for five years, I've helped steer the ship through countless problems. I have done so much, come so far."

"_And what do you have to show for all this effort? Still tens of thousands of lightyears from home, with so many dangers that you don't even know about still to come. Voyager isn't likely to ever get home, you should know that by now, and even if you do ever make it back you don't have anything or anybody waiting for you. Your family is still broken, your dad won't talk to you, Starfleet will never give a real job to an Academy dropout like you. And to top it all off everyone in the Maquis, the only close family you have ever had, is dead. I don't know how you can keep going."_

B'Elanna's heart became heavier as she realised what The Voice was saying was true. She wasn't exactly the most liked person on the ship. A ship deserted in the middle of nowhere with no support and even if it ever made it back to the Alpha quadrant there was nothing for her there.

"_That's right B'Elanna. Picture this: back in the Alpha quadrant, every crewmember runs into the arms of friends and loved ones, basks in the promotions they will all receive, and you'll be left all alone. The Voyager crew will all disappear and go their separate ways and poor B'Elanna will be left there with no friends, no family, no career. Nothing"_

"No" she told The Voice, "that won't happen, there is a bond between all of us. We have all been through so much together, forged so many friendships. If we make it back we'll be heroes! They are good people, they would never abandon me."

"_Just like you and your father had a close bond and he would never abandon you?"_

That stopped B'Elanna in her tracks. The will to defy and argue with The Voice was fading. Her body had not moved the entire time and it would not move until the following morning but The Voice in her mind was getting louder all the time, getting more persistent. And it was beginning to consume her.


	2. Chapter 2

All of the senior staff officers had assembled for the weekly staff meeting, Captain Janeway, Commander Chakotay, Tuvok, Harry, Tom, Seven and B'Elanna were all sitting around the table when the meeting got started.

Janeway began; " Ok much to everyone's delight we have finally cleared The Void, no more long endless boring days, we finally have some stars, planets and nebula in front of us. We're all happy about that but we still have to remember they can still be dangers and we still need to gather as much information as we can about what's ahead of us. So, what do we know exactly what's out there?

Seven said "Captain, we have detected some gas giants on long range sensors however their density is making it difficult to obtain an accurate reading of their composition. It would be beneficial for us to gather more information before proceeding"

Janeway said "Agreed is there any way we can boost long range sensors?"

Tuvok said" Captain if I may interject, I believe it would be much more effective to launch a probe"

Chaoktay said "Good idea Tuvok. And maybe this is a good time to try out your new shield design, see how it holds up."

"Very well commander"

Janeway said "Very well now that that issue is dealt with are there any other items of business?"

Tom came in "I'm fine with that Captain but you know we could always take a shuttlecraft out there to see what we can find. I have this great idea for a new shuttle craft.

Harry smiled" Here we go again..."

Janeway said "I appreciate your enthusiasm Tom but let's just concentrate one thing for now. Get started on the probe. That'll be all people. Dismissed."

Everyone got to their feet and strode purposefully out the door. B'Elanna was the last one to leave, most of the meeting had passed her by, she didn't even say anything. Before going back to her duties Tom stopped her just before she got to the turbolift. "Hey darling, it's been a while since we've had a chance to talk. What do you say when we finish our shifts you can come over to my quarters we can replicate some dinner and catch up?

"That sounds nice Tom but I'm kinda tired, maybe we can do it some other time.

"Really? Come on I haven't seen much of you over the past few weeks. I miss you"

"I know. I miss you too. Look I have to get back to engineering we'll see how things go later okay?"

B'Elanna walked off without giving Tom the chance to answer.

She stepped inside the turbolift by herself and asked for engineering. As the doors hissed shut the familiar hum of the turbolift's movements began and engulfed the surroundings of the enclosed space around her.

B'Elanna leaned up against the wall and rubbed the ridges on her forehead. She was tired, not necessarily sleep deprived but just worn-out. She had a few seconds before the turbolift would make its stop, and it was all the time that was needed for The Voice to make a return.

"_Did you ever wonder why he is still with you?"_

"What?! That's easy, he's with me because he loves me."

"_Oh really? You're one of the few options that are available to him. If you were back in the alpha quadrant do you really think he would go for you over everyone else? Don't kid yourself. Even a short while ago you had your own doubts about the relationship, what was that word you used? Oh ya, Mok'tah: bad match"_

"People come together over all kinds of circumstances, people meet in extreme situations like this and end up happy together, it happens all the time. You don't know how things might have been different if we were never pulled into the delta quadrant!

"_Ok let me tell you what would have happened. You would have carried on being an angry, impulsive bitch, you would have gotten into your fair share of needless fights. Then you would have either ended up in a Starfleet prison or killed with the rest of the Maquis. You and Tom would never meet and no sane person would think of going anywhere near such an angry, irresponsible worthless piece of shit like you."_

The turbo lift came to a halt and before her was the long walk to engineering.

"_It doesn't matter anyway. Tom will probably leave you before too long and then it will be official: you will have made a complete catastrophe of every aspect of your life and you'll be left as total failure."_

Slowly B'Elanna walked to engineering and was instantly greeted by a "Good morning Lieutenant". She replied with a standard "good morning" but didn't even have the energy to look up to find out exactly who it was that greeted her. It didn't seem to matter anyway. She didn't have a lot of enthusiasm for the job at hand and just counted down the hours until she was off duty.


	3. Chapter 3

Later on that day B'Elanna walked out of engineering and she was glad to be finished, there was nothing she particularly wanted to do but she was just glad to off work anyway. She decided to spend some time in the holodeck since she had saved up quite a few rations. She looked through a list of programmes she had used before and settled on white-water kayaking, a little on the edge but she was looking for something thrilling. Besides with the safety protocols on she wasn't going to be placed in any real danger anyway.

She sat in her kayak looking down at the streaming water, ready to fling herself into it and begin her decent. She had some time to think before sending herself in though.

"_You're a failure!"_

She just couldn't fight The Voice any longer, at this point she didn't really want to fight it anyway.

"_You deserve to be punished for what a horrible person you are!"_

B'Elanna just sat there feeling numb, cold and dead inside. She couldn't feel any emotion anymore, she didn't know what it was like to feel anything.

"Computer disengage safety protocols" she ordered.

"Warning. Disengaging safety protocols presents extreme risk of injury"

"Override"

She was sick and tired of the numbness, of not being able to feel anything, she just wanted to be able to feel something, even if that something was pain. She launched her kayak of its standing point and pushed downstream. Water was flying into her face as she desperately tried to maintain control of the craft. Skilfully using her oar she carefully navigated through the short narrow course. She had slowed it down to make it through the last obstacle but couldn't quite swing around fast enough. B'Elanna's body slammed into the side of the creak, she stuck her elbow out to protect herself from the fall but it slammed against the cold rocky ground. Pain shot up her arm like a jolt of electricity. The kayak entered the calm still lake, there was nothing else that had to be manoeuvred through. There was only one thing that she needed to focus on, and that was the burning sensation that was piercing up her left arm.

She sat there in quiet disbelief at what she had just done. "I've just intentionally hurt myself " she murmured, thinking about the insanity of what that meant.

"_It's okay" _The Voice declared. "_This was something you needed to do to yourself. You needed to feel something and now you can. You needed to punish yourself and you've done it. It wasn't easy but you did what you had to do. I'm proud of you"_

This was the most positive thing The Voice ever said about her, and she noticed a calm serenity had washed over her. All of the worries and the troubles had been lifted from her shoulders and it felt peaceful. She hadn't experienced this kind of rush in a long time. It was wonderful! But it was also time to get back to her quarters and figure out what to do about the injury. Obviously going to sickbay and trying to explain this was out of the question. She would figure something out.

"Computer end programme."

The water, the rocks, all the scenery morphed into the black and yellow surroundings that was the default setting of the holodeck. As she walked out she bumped into a familiar face; Harry.

"Hi B'Elanna, are you finished up in there?"

"Oh yea, you can work away"

"Great! I'm just going inside to set up the Captain Proton programme. Tom will be along in a few minutes. If you want you're welcome to stay."

"No that's okay Harry. I hear enough about Captain Proton from Tom as it is, I think I'll let you two act out the simulations and I'll let Tom debrief me on your progress later"

"Haha, that's fine! I'll talk to you later!"

Harry walked straight into the holodeck and B'Elanna went back to her quarters as quickly as possible.

As soon as she got there she checked out her arm. It still hurt and there was no visible damage as of yet but it would probably bruise after a while. There shouldn't be any lasting damage. The emotional high the pain had given her had started to wear off and now all she was left with was a battered arm. As she walked into the bathroom and looked into the mirror B'Elanna was horrified by what she saw. She looked into the mirror to see the face of a hollow broken woman, one that had very little to fight for. And very little to live for. Memories of her as a child came back, memories of running around and playing with her friends, talking to her mother, having fun, being happy. She thought about good times she had as a sweet innocent loving child and then thought about where she was now.

"What's happened to me? How could I have gone from that to this?!"

"_Because you have screwed up so many things in your life since then. Punishing yourself for those mistakes is the right thing to do. Don't forget the good feelings you had just after you hurt yourself either. That made it all worthwhile"_

B'Elanna remembered the adrenalin rush that came after the pain. It was like nothing she had ever experienced before. It was totally unexpected and it was exhilarating. But that was a couple of hours ago and what had gone up had now come back down. The crash had set in and all she could do was lie in bed. As she lay there The Voice said one last thing to her.

"_The holodeck will always be there for when you need it"_


	4. Chapter 4

How long did it go on for? B'Elanna wasn't really sure, days drifted into weeks and time didn't really matter. The important thing was when she knew she wasn't feeling well the holodeck was waiting for her, with many dangerous programmes available without safety protocols. The bruises had accumulated over time and part of her knew she could not hide it forever. On such an isolated ship somebody was going to find out about it eventually.

How was she eventually caught? One holodeck "accident" too many had led to her being knocked out. When she came to the Doctor had already discovered all of the injuries and noted they had received barely any treatment. Slowly the pieces started to come together until it led to a confrontation with Chakotay about what had been bothering her for so long. It had been cut somewhat short while the situation with the Malon had to be dealt with but now they were out in open space. There was no situation to deal with. Captain Janeway had asked her to come to her ready room to discuss the whole issue. There would be no immediate distractions this time. Kathryn knew about some of the problem already but wanted to hear everything from B'Elanna directly. As she stood outside the ready room her heart was pounding. B'Elanna had been involved in countless attacks from the likes of the Kazon, the Vidians, the Hirogen and the Borg and she was as nervous now as she was then.

B'Elanna entered. The captain had been sitting on the long couch with a cup of coffee in her hand waiting for her.

"Come in, have a seat" Janeway gestured to a spot right beside her.

B'Elanna complied. She walked over tentatively and slowly and took a seat beside her captain.

"Is there anything I can get you? Tea, water?

"No thanks Captain. I'm fine."

"Ok. Before we start I just want you to know this isn't an interrogation. I don't want to put any pressure on you or make you uncomfortable in any way. If you don't want to answer anything that's fine and you are free to leave at any point. I only asked you to come here because I care about the wellbeing of my crew and, as I said before, if there is something wrong I want to help."

B'Elanna nodded her head. Already she began to feel a little more comfortable.

"So, when did it all start?

She took a breath to compose herself and began.

"When we received the messages from Starfleet, from the Hirogen transmission array, Chakotay told me he got a message that said…" she had to pause for a second, "all of our friends who were in the Maquis, the people who we fought alongside, our best friends were all dead. All of them were slaughtered by some force in the alpha quadrant called the Dominion. We had no chance to see them again, to talk to them and there is nothing we can do about that now."

Janeway took a sip of her coffee "and how did that make you feel?"

"Well….. The Maquis were basically the closest thing to family that I ever had. When I was a small child my father walked out on me, it left me on my own with an angry and cynical mother. Then I joined Starfleet academy but I was still temperamental and angry and I ended up getting kicked out. I was broken, I had nowhere to go and I didn't know what to do with my life. Then I found the Maquis, they took me in and treated me as one of their own. They trusted me, made me feel safe. We were a family. They meant everything to me. Everything. Then a few years ago I got separated from them. It was so hard for me to deal with, they were gone I couldn't communicate with them anymore and then I had to adjust to life on a federation starship. It was hard for everybody to deal with that. Just as I began to feel safe again I hear the Maquis have been killed. Anybody I have ever trusted is either dead or has left me and I don't know who I can trust anymore. I feel isolated, scared and lonely."

"B'Elanna" said Janeway as she move a little closer to her chief engineer "you are a valued member of this crew. You're the best engineer I have ever come across. Without you we would have never come this far. We all trust you and we're all here for you. B'Elanna you're not alone and I don't want you to feel that way.

"If we get back to the alpha quadrant though I'll be on my own again. Everyone has their families to go to and will be reassigned to another ship. I have no one, and Starfleet won't post me anywhere, I'm a dropout. "

"I'll tell Starfleet about everything you've done. I'll tell them what an exemplory job you have done on Voyager. They'll take it into consideration I know they will. And if I get command of another starship again you are the first person I will ask for."

B'Elanna sat there and thought about the significance of that. The Voice didn't have time to come in and counter everything that was being said. People actually respected her! They appreciated what she did. It was nice to hear that out loud. It was nice to hear something that was contrary to what she usually heard.

Janeway took another sip from her coffee and put the mug down on the table. "If this is how you felt you could have talked to any of us; me, Chaoktay, Neelix, the Doctor Tom but you didn't. Why did you try and take all these feelings out on yourself on the holodeck?

B'Elanna responded. "Because…. because I've been hurt so many times in my life, my father leaving, getting kicked out of Starfleet, being separated from the Maquis. All of those things kept happening to me and I had no choice but to try and put all of things to one side and keep going. I had to focus on the next problem, focus on how to get through whatever situation I was in. I never had time to try and deal with how these things affected me emotionally. The only way I could keep going was to basically try and shut off my emotions and pretend that it didn't matter, to try and convince myself that I just had to focus on doing my job well and everything else would fall into place. I guess I just reached at point where I had been trying to block out my emotions for so long I didn't know how to feel anything anymore. There was no emotion at all. I couldn't feel happy or sad or angry or anything. I felt absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. And when I heard the Maquis were dead I put on an angry face but the reality was inside me nothing changed. My emotions stayed completely flat. I realised then I didn't know how to feel anymore. And I felt I needed to be punished for all the things I screwed up in my life. So I wanted to feel something and I wanted to be punished and hurting myself was the best way to do that. I had so much frustration built up inside of me I needed some way to release it. I had no idea what else to do or how else I could deal with it."

B'Elanna took a deep breath. All of that was very hard to admit.

Janeway scratched her forehead, it was hard for her to listen to aswell. " Ok….. I can't sit here and say that I understand everything that's happened, it wouldn't be fair to you if I did. But I want you to know that regardless of what you've been telling yourself you do not deserve to punished for anything you have done in the past. Everyone has regrets. Tom had a piloting error that led to the deaths of three officers. That's much worse than anything you have ever done. Do you think he should hurt himself because of that?"

"Of course not! It was a long time ago and he has done so many good things since then"

Janeway said "Alright, why do you say that about him and not about yourself?"

B'Elanna stopped and thought about that, maybe she had been too hard on herself. The Voice that had been attacking her constantly over the past few months left her in no doubt that she was a horrible person but listening to the captain now made her realise that she might have been irrational about the whole thing.

Eventually B'Elanna said "when you put it like that I guess it does show that I have been a bit too hard on myself"

Janeway smiled and said "alright, we've covered a lot and I think that's enough for one day. I'll double check with the Doctor but as far as I'm concerned you can return to your duties. I want to meet you on a weekly basis just to see how things are going. I'd also feel more comfortable if you spoke to some else on a regular basis about all this. Perhaps the Doctor…"

"Not the Doctor!" B'Elanna interrupted. For all his skills as a doctor his bedside manner wasn't great, and that was pretty important in a case like this.

"Alright" Janeway agreed. "Not the Doctor. Chakotay knows you as well as anyone. Consider Neelix, he is the morale officer and he does have a knack of making people smile when they really need it. I'll leave it up to you but I would like you to see someone else also. I know we don't have a psychologist on board but we'll do what we can for you. I promise."

There was one more thing had to be sorted out. "Captain, what about my holodeck privileges?" They had been revoked once the truth came out.

Janeway said" You'll have limited access to the holodeck, you can only use it when someone else is with you. Let's leave it at that for about a month and we'll review it from there"

"I can live with that, I think it's time I went back to my quarters"

Janeway nodded and B'Elanna walked out and went for the turbolift. When she got there a familiar voice spoke to her.

"_Don't listen to her you small useless piece of shit. You're still trapped on a ship tens of thousands of lightyears from home. Years away from getting back if you ever will. Don't think any of that has changed. Don't think what you do makes any difference!"_

"That's it I've had enough. I'm not gonna listen to you anymore. You've caused me nothing but pain and misery and that's all you want; to make me miserable. I'm through with your games and your lies.

"_I'll always be here though. You will never get rid of me"_

"Maybe that's true. But I have finally realised what a fraud you really are!"

This was the first time she really talked back to the voice of her depression, combated what it had said. It was right about one thing though. It would always be there, criticizing her actions and berating her in general. At least now she understood how destructive it can get and how destructive it can make her. Trying to recover from all this wasn't going to be easy but it was a relief to know there were still people in her life that wanted to help out, that she could reach out to. She got back to her quarters and an emotionally drained B'Elanna Torres collapsed into bed. Tired but glad that she could get back to work tomorrow morning. She smiled, closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.


End file.
